


Synchrony

by 30xf



Series: 201 Days Of X Files [91]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:27:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30xf/pseuds/30xf
Series: 201 Days Of X Files [91]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/315719
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Synchrony

"How many times have you read my senior thesis, Mulder?" Scully asks, settling herself in the passenger seat of the car.

I clear my throat, starting the car and fastening my seat belt. There's not a chance I'm telling her how many times I've read that thing. "What do you mean by that?" I smirk at her, pulling out of the hospital parking lot.

Scully rolls her eyes, pressing the preset buttons of the radio on our FBI fleet sedan, despite never having programmed them. "You gave me a direct quote from it. I lived and breathed that thing for months and even I don't remember it that well." She stops on the only station coming in clearly, which appears to be classic rock.

I chuckle, looking in her direction for only a moment before answering honestly, "I've read it a couple of times. I've got a good memory." It's not really a lie. I do have a good memory, and I haven't actually read it in a while.

"Better than mine," she sighs, looking out the window into the darkness.

"It was good, Scully. You should be proud of it," I tell her. I don't assume she needs to be told this, but I figure it can't hurt.

"I know it was good," she assures me, fixing me with her eyes. "I never said it wasn't good--I just said I didn't remember it." She's got an appropriate smirk on her face that I fully appreciate before she looks away.

I laugh, nodding, "Fair enough."

"Honestly though, most people probably wouldn't want to remember anything their twenty-three-year-old selves wrote."

I nod again, longer than I should, as my brain keeps time with the music. "But most twenty-three-year-olds typically write about broken hearts and finding themselves. Most twenty-three-year-olds aren't rewriting Einstein." I sound impressed, because I am. As impressed as I was when I read her thesis before I met her in our basement office.

She's quiet, and I mistake it for pride. "I don't think I could bear to read it again now," she muses. "God, I can't imagine how pretentious it must sound." She says the last part mostly to herself, but I hear it loud and clear.

"It's not pretentious. Why would you think it's pretentious?"

Scully shrugs, and hesitates before answering, "I was out of my parent's house...had a boyfriend...was going to be a doctor. I thought I had my life figured out. Figured out to the point where I had the nerve to rewrite Einstein anyways."

I frown, "But from what I understand, you were already doubting becoming a doctor."

She shoots me a look that tells me she didn't need reminding of that fact. "But I hadn't gotten the nerve to admit it out loud at that point. I was too busy trying to start the perfect life."

I hadn't expected this conversation to take this depressing turn, but here we are. I decide to try and pick it up again. "Look at it this way--you're still out of your parent's house...you're a doctor AND an FBI agent...and you don't have a boyfriend that I know of, but...you've got me!" I put my hand out for some kind of low-five to celebrate, but she just looks at me, then my hand, then looks back out her window.

"Twenty-three-years-old," she sighs. "Had the balls to rewrite one of the greatest minds of all time, but not to tell my father I didn't want to be a doctor anymore."

I feel a slight rush of anger. It baffles me how someone could be raised in what I understand to be a loving environment, and end up trying to please their parents for the rest of their life, to the detriment of their own wants and needs. I shake my head, looking out over the long stretch of road in front of us. "I don't see how you can still let that bother you," I tell her. I know it's not my place, given that I never even met her father. But it's likely I've spent more time with Scully than her father had in the last few years of his life. "You were afraid of disappointing him; I don't think you did. You told him you didn't want to be a doctor, and you became an FBI agent. And look at all you've accomplished. If you ask me, you've got bigger balls than that pretentious twenty-three-year-old you claim to have been."

Scully doesn't respond for a moment, and I'm partly worried it's out of anger for some reason. Finally she holds a hand out to me, much like I had done to her a few minutes ago. I look at it and smile as I give her a gentle low five, resisting the urge to take her hand. "Thank you," she says quietly.

With that, the conversation is closed. "You wanna stop for some pizza?" I ask. "I'm starving."

"That's probably not the greatest idea at this time of night," she reasons, though she had perked up at the mention of food.

Ignoring her protest, I signal for the next exit. "Well, if no one comes back from the future to stop us...how bad of an idea can it really be?"


End file.
